Day 113
Nine of the henchmen were quarantined in their rooms. They had been moved to be all together, while their still-healthy roommates had been moved out. Drakken's pressurized steam machine had made a grand return as the henchmen's quarters were all sterilized before the move, including the sick rooms. Due to the circumstances, Shego noticed he'd had the decency to not be excited about the invention's success.
Or maybe he was just genuinely concerned.
She had settled easily on the latter when he threw himself headlong back into the work, burning the candle at both ends and all but ignoring her again as he now had a potential working vaccine. But she pushed past the insecurity, irritation, and depression his ignoring her brought every time it chanced to threaten her as the days passed.
The situation was so much bigger than her and Drakken. Their life...could wait. But the world, and their henchmen, were dying.
Six men had volunteered for the vaccine test. Shego hadn't completely understood at first, but she came to realize a few days later that after being injected with the test vaccine, they would then be deliberately infected with the virus. As she had watched the array of men line up to be willingly infected with something potentially deadlier than the black plague by a man whose only credentials were his own grandiose claims, she couldn't decide if she should feel like a coward or like the only intelligent person in the lair. She would have never done what they were doing.
She had however, allowed her blood to be drawn and her antibodies studied. And then she received another surprising awakening when she had in complete seriousness reminded Drakken about the 'no cloning' clause of her contract. He had responded simply that if he had really wanted to clone her, he could have done so years ago. Some skin cells from where her lips touched a glass, or one of her many long hairs left on the sofa were all he would have needed. But he had honored their agreement.
Something about that revelation...made her even more attracted to him. And it was confusing. She was generally attracted to evil, not to good. But perhaps it was because he'd had the power all along and kept it to himself. He had smirked a little when he revealed the truth of the matter.
Even if he was trying to save the world, there was definitely still evil in him. She hoped that whenever it was all over, they could go back to world domination.
"Hey Boss?" a now-familiar voice sounded from the testing area.
Shego spun in the computer chair to give her full attention to the exchange, everything now that happened in the lab being of utmost importance.
"Yes, what is it?" Drakken answered, turning from his microscope.
The henchman—Sanchez, Shego reminded herself—was approaching the blue man and looking anxious.
"We think...Phil needs a ventilator. Or he's not gonna make it."
Shego's brow rose. She remembered the oxygen she had stolen for Drakken months ago, but he had never been so bad as to need a ventilator to breathe. And given all she had heard on the news about the effects of the disease, she realized just how lucky Drakken had been.
"Ngh. Shego?" Drakken said, immediately turning the task to her.
She knew what he wanted. For her to search on the computer for an appropriate device and then go steal it. But there was one problem with that.
"Uh, you've been watching the news. There's a shortage of ventilators worldwide."
"So what? Steal one!" he commanded sharply.
Several henchmen were watching the exchange. Shego wished again that Drakken would treat her a little less like a side-kick and more like...like...
'His fiancée...'
She was grateful for the defining term. Especially since her own 'good streak' was about to show, and she needed something else to anchor herself with to quell the mental battle she was also having about good and evil.
"From a hospital? From some other poor sap whose life depends on it?"
Drakken's jaw set firmly as he stared at her. But she could see behind his eyes that she had already won the argument. He couldn't do it. Not after everything they had been through in the past several months. Their own illnesses, the sick henchmen, and the memory of his mother were all very strong motivating factors in his new quest to save the world. A sliver of insecurity crept past her barriers as she reassured herself he was motivated by the baby, too.
"I'll build one," he grumbled, stalking away from his workbench and up to the computer. Shego slid the chair out of the way as he leaned over the keyboard and started researching what parts he would need.
Shego sighed. That meant going out and stealing. It wasn't that she didn't want to go out, especially to do some evil. It was that she was becoming more and more conscious of the baby's health, considering she had been the cause of the pain that had worried her so much before. It probably wasn't a good idea.
"Dr. Drakken?" a voice spoke. Shego and Drakken turned to see Ravinder hovering a few feet away. "Perhaps I can help? I have a degree in biomechanical engineering."
Shego watched the battle of pride wage in Drakken's eyes, which ended far sooner than she had expected. She had to give him credit.
"Yes. Um. Do you know how to build one?"
The man stepped up next to Drakken and Shego scooted further out of the way. This new, closer association they had both created with the henchmen was proving to be very useful. And she also noticed...the men all seemed happier too, despite the horror of the current situation. Any of them could fall prey to the disease at any time, and several of their compatriots were fighting for their lives.
She supposed there really was something to Drakken's insistence that they were an 'evil family' after all.
She rolled her eyes at herself. Of course there was. She'd studied child development. The human brain didn't stop needing relationships with other humans once it was fully developed. Even villains needed...companionship.
When Drakken and Ravinder had finished at the computer several minutes later, Shego scooted back up to work on her task. She still did data entry for the tests. Now it was all just more significant.
She glanced over her shoulder. Drakken was scribbling away at a pad of paper making the list of things to steal, she was sure. She sighed as she turned back to her own long list of numbers. The stealing would get done faster if she did it. The henchmen always took longer and sometimes didn't make it back. Then she had to break them out of jail and do the work herself anyway.
She was considering the various ways she could be more stealthy about the task she was soon to be given, and less violent for the baby's sake...when she suddenly felt cool fingers on the back of her neck, pushing her hair aside. Her gut instinct was to turn and blast the offender away, but she saw Drakken's reflection in the computer screen. He had pulled his face-mask aside. She watched as he pushed her voluminous hair out of the way and then bent down. She shivered as a small, soft kiss was placed on her neck just below her ear.
When he let her hair fall she whirled around to face him, but he had already walked away. She watched as he took the notepad from the workbench and tore out the paper he'd been writing on. He took it over to three henchmen and began instructing them on how to steal the parts.
She shook her head. Days of nothing... They were villain and side-kick again by all appearances, save her sleeping in his bed. And then out of nowhere...
The henchmen made their way to the ultrasonic bath and began arguing over who would go first while Drakken returned again to the workbench. He caught her eye and gave her a devilish grin before looking down into his electron microscope.
Another shiver raced over her skin.
Day 116
Shego woke up to the sound of a loud, metallic crash. She quickly sat up from where her head had been lain on the computer desk and then immediately regretted it. Her neck twinged and she grabbed it with both hands as her eyes darted around for the source of the sound that had woken her until she spotted the only other person in the lab at the late hour.
Drakken's incoherent cursing brought her eyes to the far corner where he was hopping around on one foot while holding his other. She saw the half-constructed ventilator tipped over on the ground, its hoses splayed in multiple directions. At that moment, Drakken's foot came down on one and he slipped and fell face-first on the floor, his arms just barely softening his fall.
Shego was on her feet and running to his side before he seemed to have processed what had happened.
"You okay?" she asked as she started pulling him up by the shoulders.
He sat back heavily on the floor with a grimace of pain, gripping one of his elbows now as his body coiled tight like a spring. Shego rubbed his shoulder as she replaced one hand on the back of her neck and massaged her pulled muscle. Drakken had warned her against falling asleep in the computer chair, but she had waved him off.
He hadn't left the lab once since the stolen ventilator parts had been brought in, so she resolved not to leave him either. He had literally been working on the device day and night, forgoing sleep entirely, so that some forty-plus hours later his eyes now seemed permanently bloodshot along with the black circles underneath.
"Nnyh...nyaagh!" he cried in frustration.
She sighed. "Drakken... You've got to sleep," she said.
He shook his head and slowly started to stand, wincing with every movement.
"Phil's life could depend on this," he argued as he began pulling the ventilator upright. Several pieces had become disconnected when it fell and he scowled as he started gathering them up. "So could others!"
Shego remained kneeling on the floor and rubbed her neck with both hands, sighing deeply.
"What happened? Why did it fall?" she asked, knowing protest would be useless.
He hesitated a moment then, and she recognized the tell-tale sign in his eyes that a lie a was forthcoming.
"Drakken," she said firmly.
He sat back in his chair and sighed, rubbing his elbow again.
"I...might have dozed off," he admitted through clenched teeth.
Shego blinked. That was enough for her.
"All right. Bed. Now. Let what's-his-...Ravinder work on this instead."
The next few minutes were spent in a furious, but depthless argument as she shoved him over to the ultrasonic bath and proceeded to strip him once they were inside the large, sterile chamber.
"But what if he dies while I'm sleeping—hey!" Drakken snarled as she yanked his pants and boxers down in one rough tug.
"Against my better judgment, I'll let you get up in just a few hours. But you can't help anyone if you work yourself to death!"
Drakken continued to fume as she shoved him into the second chamber that would fill with lukewarm, highly-concentrated salt water and then proceed to clean him with ultrasonic pulses. His arguments halted suddenly as she quickly stripped down and hopped into the small chamber with him.
He was still staring at her in defiance as she activated the cleaning sequence, but the focus in his eyes had started to waver. It took Shego very little effort to understand why.
They had never bathed or showered together, and the ultrasonic chamber was designed for efficiency—there really wasn't room for two.
"This is counter-productive," he said suddenly, referring to the both of them standing inside the narrow vertical cylinder.
"You can't be trusted to take care of yourself," she argued.
She grabbed the oxygen regulator from its hook on the ceiling and held it out to him as the water approached shoulder-level, much more rapidly for their combined presence taking up more volume of the chamber than usual.
He continued glaring at her, but when the water reached her chin she only held the regulator closer to him and held her breath. She barely caught his eye-roll before the waters replaced the last of the air in the chamber and they were both left floating in the tiny space.
Drakken grabbed the regulator out of her hand and after securing it in his mouth he crossed his arms over his chest. She smirked at him and wagged her finger from side to side. She let her body go limp and floated freely in the water, none of her limbs touching as he had instructed when the device was first built. For the ultrasonic pulses to be completely effective, no part of them could touch the floor, walls, ceiling, or themselves.
In the dim blue light of the chamber—an aesthetic she was sure he had added for villainous effect—she saw him roll his eyes again as he let his arms float. She gestured for the respirator and he passed it off to her after taking a deep breath.
She only took two lungfuls of the pure oxygen before holding her breath again and returning the regulator to him. His brow rose, but she shook her head. In the exhausted state he was in, he might forget where he was and try to breathe water. She needed to keep an eye on him.
He continued staring at her in annoyance as her hair floated around and between them, their knees occasionally bumping as they tried to stay apart in the tiny chamber. A flicker caught her eye and she held up her hand to admire her engagement ring under the water. This seemed to get his attention and after a moment he looked down at his own ring thoughtfully.
She knew what he would be thinking. She waited until he looked up at her before smirking and twisting her ring around her finger. He predictably rolled his eyes and scowled behind the regulator. When he had first built the ultrasonic bath she had teased him about it being an oversized jewelry cleaner. He obviously remembered the quip.
She motioned for the regulator again and he passed it through the floating blanket that was her hair for her to take another couple of breaths before she returned it to him. They spent the remainder of the brief cleaning cycle staring almost unblinking into each other's eyes in the salt water. His ire gradually diminished into tired annoyance, and she watched his reddened eyes worriedly. She wondered if the ridiculous schedule he was keeping would make him susceptible to the disease again, or to other illnesses.
When the cleaning cycle completed the water quickly began to drain, leaving them dripping and naked in front of each other. Drakken frowned at her.
"You forgot our clothes."
Shego realized that she had, in fact, forgotten to put their clothes in the ultrasonic washer-dryer machine he had also designed. Thankfully, she had had the foresight to insist that there be a robe and two towels in the third and final chamber where they would dry off, just in case.
When the water had drained and the locks released she slid past him into the last chamber and began drying herself off, refusing to acknowledge him. He wasn't getting out of sleeping.
Drakken hung the regulator back on its ceiling hook and joined her in the tiny space.
"How are we supposed to get out of here?" he said with a scowl.
Shego shrugged lightly. "You can wear the robe. I'll wear a towel," she said as she began gently wringing her hair out.
Drakken gasped, but she didn't look at him. She knew his modesty forbade either of them being in any part of the lair in that state, but, they had little choice. And she wasn't giving him one anyway.
"Come on, Dr. D. Robe."
He had been gaping at her and not drying off, so she shoved the second towel at him before she used her damp one to try to extract more moisture from her hair. She was not looking forward to her thick locks dripping down her back the whole walk back to his room.
Scowling and blushing slightly, Drakken hurriedly dried off and then shrugged into the white terrycloth bathrobe. Shego wrapped her wet towel around her and secured it well, aware of him staring at her the whole time.
"Shego...you can't go out there like that," he said warily.
"And how should I go out?" she said with a smirk, setting her hands on her hips.
His jaw worked for a moment as he looked more and more concerned.
"Well..." he said anxiously, "you can wear the robe...and I can—"
"Give me a show?" she grinned.
His cheeks reddened and he crossed his arms over the robe. She only tossed her wet hair back over her shoulder and pushed the control to open the ultra-sonic bath.
Drakken gasped at the rush of cold air and tucked the robe close to cover his chest. She held her head high as she escaped into the anteroom outside the lab that had been built just for this, and then bare-footed she exited and started briskly toward their living area.
"Shego!" Drakken hissed from behind her.
She ignored him, only glad he was following. Their clothes were a minor matter. His health was not.
She hadn't bothered checking the time when she'd been rudely awakened by the crash of the falling ventilator, but the automatic dimmed lighting of the lair told her it was past midnight. She started calculating how much sleep he might allow himself to have and how much more she could argue for as he caught up and hovered just behind her, his steps faster as he nearly jogged.
"Shego!" he hissed again.
"Whatcha afraid of?" she asked, tossing a smirk over her shoulder. She lifted her arms to stretch, tired as she still was, and her towel slipped ever-so-slightly. She heard Drakken's choked gasp as his hands were suddenly under her arms making sure the towel stayed up.
"Aww, so thoughtful," she teased. They reached his room and she turned to pat his cheek gently.
His face was turning redder and his nervousness turned back to ire.
"Shego!" he scolded more loudly.
She only chuckled as they passed into his room and he immediately locked the door. Grinning, she tossed the damp towel into the dirty laundry pile and continued across the room to the bed where she'd left her pajamas under one of his pillows.
She was gratified by the silence behind her that told her he was holding his breath, but when she turned he wasn't staring in the way she had expected. He was shaking his head at her antics, and then with a grimace he headed the other direction toward his wardrobe.
Shego frowned and turned to the clean laundry pile for some underwear.
"Two hours," came the frustrated voice from across the room.
Shego whirled around, her eyes wide.
"Whoa no. Absolutely not. Five hours minimum."
"Every minute counts, Shego, or did you forget?" he said, peeking around the wardrobe door to scowl at her.
She dressed quickly and frowned at the memories of caring for him while he'd been ill. With his high fever and labored breathing, she'd been afraid even her constant attentions wouldn't be enough. The reminder had the desired, sobering effect.
"Two," she said quietly as she crawled beneath the bedsheets and curled up on her side, facing away from him.
She remembered his agony in the two weeks immediately following his mother's death. She didn't know...what she would have done, if she had lost him.
"But Dr. D., it's just as dangerous not to get any sleep," she protested quietly, staring away at the wall. "You can't help anyone if...if you..."
She felt Drakken's weight slowly sink into the mattress behind her and a second later the lights went out. She relaxed slightly when he pressed up behind her to spoon her.
"I'm used to staying up for days," he said. "You've just never noticed."
She frowned. "Yes I did. But—"
"But you weren't in love me then so you didn't care?" he sniped.
She pinched her eyes shut. "No. You were healthier then. You weren't still recovering from a life-threatening illness." She rolled onto her back to peer up at him. "Do you ever look in a mirror? You've lost weight, and you barely eat anymore which makes it worse. You look..."
He scowled deeply. "Older?"
"Well yeah. Illness can have life-changing effects, Doc. I..."
She rolled back to her side as she felt the threat of tears in her eyes. She blinked rapidly to banish them.
He set his arm heavily across her, and she peered down at the gold of his ring standing out against the blue of his skin and the red of the blankets. She patently ignored all the usual pulls toward frustration and insecurity in her head and let her heart speak instead.
"I want to marry you, Dr. D. I want to raise our kid, and...rule the world with you. And then grow old with you," she said quietly. "I don't want to lose you...now that I've finally got you."
Silence was his reply, and she closed her eyes and focused on his warmth at her back. On the rare occasions he did sleep and she found herself in his embrace, it was much easier to forget the horrors of the world outside and just focus on the joy inside their secret world.
"Three hours," he said, his voice startling her.
A tiny smile quirked at the corner of her mouth for just a moment, but she couldn't hold it knowing that he'd been awake for almost forty-eight hours. Three hours of sleep was far from enough.
Just then his hand slid beneath the blankets and came to rest on the now-ample swell of her abdomen. She couldn't have shut down her smile even if she wanted to.
"Would you like to get married on the beach?" he asked suddenly.
She opened her eyes and blinked into the green-hued glow of the darkened room.
"Why the beach?" she asked.
"You're always going on vacation to warm, sunny places," he reasoned.
She closed her eyes again and imagined the scene as his hand moved in slow circles over her pregnant belly.
"Sunset..." she sighed happily and smiled.
"A gentle breeze...blowing through the palm leaves."
"Making them applaud," she finished the thought. She grinned at the memory of the conversation they'd had once, after a particularly long-winded monologue he had given one night pacing up and down their tiny strip of volcanic beach. She had only stared boredly when he looked at her for a response, and he snapped that at least the trees were clapping.
"And I'll sing something."
She rolled her eyes beneath her closed eyelids. "Of course you will..." She let herself drift back into the daydream. "And...we'll dance under the stars..."
"You'll wear a white dress..."
She laughed aloud and shifted to look at him. "Me? Wear white?"
He blinked at her through the dim, green light from the moat. "Why wouldn't you?"
"Because..." Her laughter died as she saw the genuine lack of understanding on his face. "Never mind."
She grinned and rolled back over to enjoy his soft rubbing of her stomach.
"I want you to wear a white dress," he said after a moment. He sounded almost hurt that she might not.
"Okay," she said, pressing back against him. Whatever he wanted was fine, whether it made sense or not. "As long as I get to marry you."
His other hand was suddenly behind her head, gently pushing her damp hair aside. He kissed the back of her neck briefly, and she shivered from head to toe as she remembered when he had done the same thing in the lab a few days before.
Shego smiled again. It was clear that the difficult conversation they'd had a week prior, painful as it had been, was the reason for their seemingly better understanding of each other. She wasn't bothered by his work obsession anymore, except that it threatened his health. But she knew he wasn't ignoring her or the baby. And he had made the deliberate effort in the lab with that kiss to let her know she wasn't just a lackey, and that he really was aware of her.
She sighed happily. She felt more relaxed than she had in days with his hand warmly covering her belly. Even though the peace would only last a few hours...she would cherish every moment of it.
She was startled suddenly when his hand left her abdomen and slipped between her thighs. Her breath caught as he gently rubbed down along her leg almost to her knee, and then back up again.
'This is new...'
She snuggled back against him as he continued the gentle massage of her leg, closing her eyes and focusing on the sensation. He had never been so boldly affectionate without her doing something to precipitate it... Even the kiss in the lab was huge for him. She wondered what, if anything, had changed. Her antics after the bath maybe...?
She sighed contentedly as he squeezed her leg, but then his hand was gone. She opened her eyes and frowned though he couldn't see it, but then was startled again as his hand reappeared in the center of her chest and began unbuttoning her pajama shirt.
'Definitely new...'
She realized then that she could feel him shaking slightly and wondered at that. Was he nervous to touch her? She had never been shy about being close to him. But, she realized...she always initiated every intimate moment between them. This was the first time he had done so. Maybe that was why he was shaking.
She shifted to lay on her back as half of her shirt was pulled open, and she caught just a glimpse of the smile in his eyes before he kissed her shoulder. He took his time, his kisses slowly traveling along her collarbone and then down her chest. A soft gasp left her lips as his found a particularly sensitive spot. She grabbed his shoulder tightly as he pushed aside the other half of her shirt, the massage resuming in a very different location.
Her back arched when his lips and hand exchanged roles, her arms going around his waist and her fingers digging into his thin flesh. In a brief moment of lucidity through her growing arousal, she realized again that he was shaking.
"Mmmh..." she hummed in pleasure, hoping to calm him as she slid her hands up under the back of his shirt. She made eye contact with him and smiled. "What do you want me to do for you now?" she breathed.
He seemed surprised by the question and his voice shook when he answered, a touch of anxiety in his eyes. "Ah...a-anything. I'm all yours."
Something in her mind clicked as she remembered part of the conversation they had had the week before, when they had lain on the bed and he had asked to feel for the baby's movements for the first time. He'd seemed surprised when she told him he didn't need to ask.
"I'm all yours."
His change of attitude and behaviors toward her suddenly made sense in light of that conversation, and a peace flooded her soul as she relaxed further into his sensuous touch. All those weeks she had worried...for absolutely nothing. He hadn't been ignoring her at all.
He had just been waiting for permission.
Suddenly his attentions stopped, and she looked up into his eager yet shy eyes.
"Last week, you said you were going to...teach me something?" he said.
She shook her head. "Maybe later," she breathed. "I like where this is going."
His brow rose, and she rubbed his back gently to encourage him. A few seconds later he resumed his attentions. She bit her lip as she tossed her head back against the pillow and smiled.
It wasn't too long after that Shego lay on her side again, trembling from her head to her toes in post-coital rapture. She had never felt that way before, with every part of her body electrified in pleasure and her heart so full she felt it might burst. She thought she might melt. She thought she might fly. She thought she might shatter into a million pieces of light. Nothing in her memory had ever made her feel the way she felt right then.
Awareness of her surroundings returned as Drakken's weight fell behind her. He tossed the bedsheet up over them before he carefully moved her hair out of his way and then lay down, gently spooning her. One of his hands rested on the back of her shoulder while his other moved protectively over her abdomen.
Something about that touch sent her further over the edge. She grabbed his hand tightly. Suddenly tears were staining her cheeks as silent sobs began shaking her all the more.
'What is this...?'
"Shego?" Drakken asked breathlessly, peering at her face. She turned her head to see his concerned eyes, framed in part by his dark hair stuck to his sweat-dampened brow.
She wanted to look into his eyes forever. She wanted to hear his voice forever, no matter what he was saying. She wanted to stare at him, to touch him...to hold him and never let go. She wanted to crawl inside his soul and rest there for all time. She felt part of her was already there and always would be.
'This is love... This is being in love...'
She lifted a shaking hand to his cheek. "I love you so much," she managed to say through her tears.
He looked surprised and delighted at her words, but still concerned. "I love you, too."
She lifted her head and pressed her trembling lips to his as her tears continued to fall. She should have been embarrassed, she realized, but she couldn't be. All she wanted was more of him.
She shifted closer to him as she continued to kiss him softly, feeling that her very life depended on the tender touch. And what kept the waves of bliss thrumming in her heart was his hand still covering the swell of her pregnant belly, delicately rubbing back and forth over the sensitive area.
She finally dropped her head back to the pillow, breathless and all her energy spent. His eyes were still concerned as he looked at her tears.
"I love you," she breathed. His expression remained the same. She lifted her hand again and lightly ran her fingers over his lips and down his chin. "I love you... I'm so in love with you, Drakken."
He blinked rapidly, and she saw the tell-tale brightness as tears began forming in his eyes. He began to lift his hand off her belly, but she gripped it tightly with her own and pressed his hand down.
"Don't stop," she pleaded. He resumed the slow rubbing of her abdomen as she let her eyes fall closed. Her shaking was subsiding, though tears continued to slip down her cheeks. She tucked herself back against him and with her free hand pulled the bedsheet up higher to her shoulder. She felt him lay his head down and press more tightly against her as she sighed blissfully into his touch. And with the feeling of his heartbeat and breaths at her back and the gentle rubbing of her pregnant belly, Shego was lulled into a deep sleep.